408 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 



so as to make them go down deep. By re- 

 peated liarrovving you can get the soil so 

 line and soft tfiat the l^nives run in the dirt 

 clear out of sight, moving it about, remind- 

 ing one of water behind a i)roppller-\vlieeI. 

 While we arc on this matter of turning 

 around with a team, 1 want to speak of 

 something akin to it. It is what an old 

 friend of mine calls 



'' TURNING-AROUND GROUND." 



This turning-around gronnd is a space of 

 twelve feet, without any thing l)eing planted 

 on it at all, at the end of every piece of 

 ground. He claims that it takes 12 feet to 

 turn about the horses and cultivator, and 

 that it is economy to plant nothing on this 

 twelve-foot strip. In fact, he recommends 

 that every market gardener have a road 

 twelve feet wide clear around his Avhole 

 farm ; and this road, at the ends of the rows, 

 is to be used for the turning-around business. 

 It lets the cultivator go clear up, or pretty 

 nearly up, to the last plant, and it lets the 

 horses turn about and start in the next row 

 without stepping on any thing. I do hate 

 to see nice crops trampled down by horses. 

 Well, I have carried this doctrine of the 

 turning-around ground a little further by 

 plowing our land so as to throw the rich 

 vegetable mold from this twelve feet right 

 over on to cultivated ground. At one place, 

 where the ground Mas remarkably rich, I 

 had it shoveled off clear down to the yellow 

 clay, and over on to tlie land adjoining, giv- 

 ing me l.'JorlG inches of lich vegetable mold, 

 instead of 7 or 8 inches. 



Now, then, if you have got your long strip 

 of land planned for big crops, let us carry 

 out some principles on it we had in our green- 

 house beds and our plant-garden. Make the 

 ground clean, level, and free from stumps 

 or stones or trees. Shade-trees are nice in 

 their place, but we don't waflt them on 

 ground that has been manured up to the 

 standard for market-garden stulf . The trees 

 must go or the vegetable-garden must go. 

 Neither can we have stones in the way to 

 bump the plowand cultivator, and rasp one's 

 feelings when he is tired, an.d disposed to be 

 cross. I would pick up every stone the size 

 of a hen's egg, or larger. By the way, when I 

 was a small boy I used to think that picking 

 up the stones off from a field was the dr3est, 

 dullest, and most monotonous work I ever 

 endured. Do you think it is any thing very 

 wonderful if I find that the small boys and 

 small girls who come to me and want work 

 feel the same way now, about picking up 

 stones, roots, etc., scattered over our 



grounds? Perhaps not; but somehow or 

 other I enjoy this work so much now that I 

 just feel happy to go out with the children 

 and pick up stones. Yes, I feel happy to go 

 out and pick up stones alone, because I feel 

 that every pebble got rid of from my grovmd 

 makes it just a little bit nearer to perfec- 

 tion. I have fig- 

 ured a good deal 

 in regard to pick- 

 ing up stones. 

 Last year we used 

 Terry's potato- 

 boxes, such as 

 are figured in tlie 

 adjoining cut. Tiiitwv's totato rox. 



I would tell the small boys and girls who 

 were asking for a job, to carry a lot of these 

 potato-boxes out into the field, scatter them 

 where they would be handy, then fill them 

 with stones, or, at least, put in all the stones 

 that were very near the boxes. Then a man 

 with a stoneboat went around and lifted the 

 boxes on to the stoneboat so he could draw 

 them where they were wanted. Do you ask 

 where the stones were wai-.tedV Why, you 

 will find the place by turning to page 58. 

 The way we gather stones now is Avhen we 

 are rolling the ground. We have an iron 

 roller drawn by two horses, with a stout 

 plank box on top, made with sloping sides. 

 A man drives the horses, and tliree or four 

 children follow along to pick up the stones 

 and pitch them on to this plank box. The 

 box is ironed strong enough so the heaviest 

 stones they can lift won't hurt it. Some 

 way the children seem to enjoy it better to 

 work along with a man and a team. When 

 the roller-box gets full we drive to a reser- 

 voir left open on purpose to take the stones, 

 and the children have the fun of pitching 

 them into the water. We have just been 

 clearing the field of stones, down across the 

 creek. There is no place handy to put- 

 them, but I remembered a hole where water 

 stood most of the year. I had one of the 

 boys dig the black mud out of the bottom of 

 this hole, and throw it up around the sides. 

 Then we put all the stones they could find 

 into the hole and covered it, according to 

 the plan of the new agriculture, witii flat 

 stones and tinware, and then raked the 

 black mud and dirt that was shoveled out, 

 back over the stones, and we now have level 

 ground on which to raise Crops with the 

 new agriculture underneath it. Almost ev- 

 ery piece of ground has low places enough 

 to take up all of the stones, and the work is 

 not very liard nor very expensive cither. If 



